Farmington of the future Slow, measured growth the formula for town's success

Sunday

Apr 22, 2012 at 3:15 AMApr 24, 2012 at 2:06 PM

By DANIELLE CURTISdcurtis@fosters.com

FARMINGTON— Ten years from now, Route 11 travelers may not notice all the ways Farmington has changed, but with a little luck — and a lot of planning — its residents will feel the effects of increased development in the form of lower taxes, more local jobs, and adequately funded schools and other services.

While town officials concede there is still a lot to learn about economic development and planning for the town's future, they are confident in the community's ability to attract and retain high-quality, varied development, businesses and housing options.

It is these goals, and the goals laid out in the town's Master Plan, that are pushing the local planning department, Planning Board, Board of Selectmen and Economic Development Commission and Downtown Committee members toward the future at a rapidly increasing pace.

"We're not going to break any land speed records, but we're going in the right direction," said local resident Jim Horgan, a member of the Board of Selectmen, Economic Development Commission, and Conservation Commission. "We're going though some growing pains right now, but we're off to a good start."

And while the town may still have a long way to go toward creating a stronger tax base for its residents and vendors, town officials point out, Farmington has already come very far from where it was just 50 years ago.

The Farmington of the Past

In the days of the Industrial Revolution, Farmington was a hub of activity.

According to information from the Strafford County Regional Planning Commission, the town's location along three rivers — the Cocheco, Ela and Mad rivers encouraged the establishment of water-powered industries. It was these industries that lead to the development of the downtown.

And the mills that housed these industries lead to the construction of a railroad through town in 1849, making Farmington a commercial center. Since then, Farmington has continued to grow rapidly, in both population and land use, though many town officials hope to improve its current rate of development.

According to the town's Master Plan — most recently written in 2005 — from 1960 to 2000, the town's population grew by 91 percent, increasing from 3,287 to 6,303. Today, the town boasts even more residents, clocking in at about 6,786 in 2010, according to census data.

And Farmington had one of the highest rates of population growth in the county between 2000 and 2010, according to information from the Strafford County Regional Planning Commission, increasing by 17.5 percent. In comparison, Rochester's population grew by only 4.5 percent, while Dover's grew 11.5 percent.

This increasing population has lead to an increased demand for housing, as well as commercial space. While this increase in the need for development is important for a community on the move, some town officials have shared a concern for the type of development that has come to the area in recent years and a desire to better tailor future development to local residents' needs.

The spread of development across the town's landscape, the Master Plan states, is one of the largest concerns.

"This relatively low density development is costly to the community because of the need to provide town services to a larger area," the plan states. "It blurs the edges between the urban and rural portions of the community. If this trend continues it will likely become more suburban in nature and will risk losing its distinctly New England character."

The plan also discusses the issues with the town's current housing, which is predominantly low and moderate-income units. While town officials are not looking to build homes residents cannot afford, because the current units are less valuable, they generate less tax revenue.

These issues with less valuable housing and development, town officials said, in turn provides inadequate funding for local schools and services, which makes the community less attractive to potential developers and creates a cycle that is hard to get out of.

Still, it is just that cycle that leaders in town are confident the town will be able to break free from in the coming ten years— by developing both commercially and residentially in clusters to preserve the town's rural atmosphere, while requiring high quality development and design for all who build in town.

"We're trying to do a tough thing on a tight budget," Horgan said. "But we can't wait for a good day, we have to start now. We have a lot to offer, we just need to get our acts together."

All Roads Lead to ... the Lakes Region

The town's location along Route 11 is one of its strongest draws for developers and businesses looking to build, town officials said. Thousands of vehicles travel along the main corridor through town each day, traveling to the Lakes Region's many tourist spots or to work and play in Rochester, Dover, and Portsmouth.

According to traffic count information from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, in 2011 there were 16,000 cars per day counted on Route 11 at the Rochester town line. In 2006, 9,400 vehicles were counted on Route 11 at the Mad River Bridge and 8,800 counted at the New Durham town line. For this reason, town officials hope that Route 11 can be an area of major development for the town. And while most agree there is still much work to do, they are full of ideas of which types businesses should move in and how to make that happen.

Most of the current development along Route 11 is on its east side, with much of the west side of the road available for development.

While Farmington Planning and Community Development Director Kathy Menici could not easily provide a total amount of acreage available for commercial development, she said that there are a number of parcels available with quite a lot of acreage. Those parcels include the former Collins and Aikman site, which has about 123 acres, a commercial/industrial lot north of Ridge Road with about 30 acres and a nine-acre lot along Paulson Road that could also be developed. Development on the west side of Route 11 could be challenged by large amounts of granite in that area. Still, Menici said that for the first 1,000 feet off the roadway, granite is not an issue and that there are many types of businesses that could take advantage of that amount of space.

Still, Horgan said that while developing along Route 11 is vital, it is also important to ensure the roadway does not become a strip of businesses and lose its rural appeal.

"We definitely want to minimize the burden on the resident taxpayers, but we don't want to beat the hell out of the landscape either," he said recently at a meeting of the Economic Development Committee. "We want to try to influence development to retain tree lines. Aesthetics are important on Route 11."

Planning Board Chair Paul Parker agreed, and said that while it is important to retain the rural character on Route 11, the town has a unique opportunity to more heavily develop that area because it is separated from the village district downtown.

"We can work on commercializing Route 11, but at the same time keep the rural character of the village center," he said.

Maintaining the rural look of Route 11 and the downtown is discussed in the Master Plan, which calls for a "nodal" development pattern along the highway area of town. These nodes would run back from the highway corridor where conditions permit rather than along the highway like a strip development. Areas with existing development would be a higher priority area for this type of development than currently undeveloped areas. According to the Master Plan, each node of development should be separated by very low density areas of development in order to help keep the town's rural character.

The Master Plan identifies two areas as ideal for such nodal development — the Sarah Greenfield Business Park and its surrounding areas, and the area bounded by Route 11, Tappan Street and Central Street.

The second area, the plan states, would be an ideal connector between Route 11 and a strengthened downtown and could include a mix of in-fill and new commercial and residential development.

What types of businesses and industries town officials would like to see downtown, however, is still up in the air. Members of the Economic Development Commission shared their ideas for potential businesses at a meeting Tuesday. Ideas ranged from pharmacies, banks and chain restaurants like Olive Garden, Applebee's and Golden Corral, to Wal-Mart or Home Depot distribution centers, various manufacturers and even larger corporations like Microsoft and Facebook.

Horgan said recently that while there are many types of businesses that could do well in the town, the main objective of development along Route 11 would be to provide more jobs for local people that could suit many different levels of education.

"We want a business large enough to support the community and offer employment," he said. "We have quite a talented cache of people here in Farmington."

Menici agreed, and told committee members Tuesday that while many in town would like to see more restaurants in the area, those businesses tend to provide primarily low-paying jobs.

"We want a business that will create jobs that pay a decent wage and allow people to have enough money to buy a home and buy a new car instead of living on something that is minimum wage or slightly better," she said.

Those kind of opportunities, she said, would be ideal for a setting like a nodal business development site, which could allow similar businesses to group together and support each other, as well as the town. And the Collins and Aikman site, she said, could be a perfect location for this type of development.

The area could offer small, affordable office spaces for startups companies, but also leave space for them to grow. And by grouping smaller companies in one area, the town's available land could be better utilized.

"Farmington has limited exposure on Route 11," she said. "You want to maximize the potential that you have there."

Raising Up the Downtown

Local town officials are also interested in maximizing the potential of the downtown village district. While most agree that more businesses are needed in that area of town — where vacancies have become more common and more lengthy in recent years — keeping the downtown's character is also a big concern.

At last week's Economic Development Commission and Downtown Committee meeting, members said that there are at least half a dozen vacancies in the village center for businesses.

"The downtown area has definitely suffered in the last five to 10 years because of the economic atmosphere," Parker said.

Still, Parker said that with the state of the economy just beginning to look a little brighter, he is hopeful that residents and others in the region with ideas for small businesses will begin moving into the downtown. He said he'd like to see more restaurants, particularly ones that are unique to the area that would draw in residents from nearby towns as well as Farmington citizens. Small retail shops and a hardware store could also do well in the downtown, he said. Bringing back some of the entertainment the town once had, like a bowling alley and a small movie theater, could also help revitalize the downtown, he said.

Horgan agreed.

"We need a resurrection of the downtown, we need to breathe some life into it," he said recently.

Members of the Economic Development Commission discussed the idea of loosening the use restrictions on the village center, saying it could limit the revitalization of the downtown. Still, Horgan said that the town is still working on a plan to improve the downtown, and that it is something that will take time.

"We're almost at square one," he said. "We're coming together to develop a plan and keep the motivation going."

Better utilizing some of the older buildings in the downtown could be one aspect of that plan, Parker said. Refurbishing those buildings, he said, would also contribute to maintaining the area's character.

"We have a lot of older buildings that are pretty much unused," he said. "I'd love to see people who own them think about developing them as lower floor retail space and upper floor residential spaces."

Something similar could be done with the town's remaining mill buildings, Parker said.

While most of the town's old mills are no longer around or usable, Parker said one former mill across from the fire station would be perfect for small retail spaces or downtown apartments, much like those that have been developed in Rochester and Dover.

"It would be nice to see that redeveloped," he said. "There haven't been many talks of that, however, which I think is a shame."

Parker said that there have been talks at the state level of expanding the area's rail service and that he thinks if the right kind of development came to the downtown, that system could be brought back to Farmington.

In the days when the mills were in service, he said, a commercial railroad ran through the town. And while he said he does not believe there was ever a passenger train that ran through the town. He thinks it would be a good addition to the area, suggesting a line could run from the Lakes Region through Farmington and other areas to Portsmouth. The line could link up with the Amtrak trains in Dover or Durham and connect people vacationing in Wolfeboro or Alton to Boston, he said. While much of these ideas are still up in the air, in the meantime, both Horgan and Parker said there is a lot the town could do to make the village center more user-friendly for locals and, in particular, pedestrians.

While many town officials said the town has a good system of sidewalks, some said there is not much in the downtown that encourages spending some time there.

Horgan suggested adding some benches or small sitting areas where people could meet up, eat lunch outside, or even just take a break if they walked a long distance to get there. This minor change could make the village center a lot more accessible to pedestrians, he said. Parker said there was some discussion a number of years ago about the town buying a small piece of property in the downtown to turn into a park, but that the plan did not take shape.

"It just wasn't feasible at the time because money was so tight," he said. "But I'd like to re-address it and see if it is something that could be developed."

Creating biking and walking trails along the river front is another past idea that Parker would like to see brought back in the coming decade. Parker said that in the late 1990s someone in town came up with designs for trails that would connect the river area with Route 153 and eventually Route 11 trails, but that, once again, lack of funding derailed the plans.

"The town has always done very well in trying to curb its appetite for taxpayers' money, so it's hard to ask for $100,000 to build a bike trail," he said, adding that if the town is in a more stable economic situation in the future it is something that could benefit residents.

Keeping up with Conservation

Even if bike trails are not in the town's immediate future, if Conservation Commission Chair Dave Connolly has his way there will be more recreational opportunities for local residents in the coming 10 years.

The commission has been working to outline forest management plans for the Town Forest and a number of other conservation properties, including the French and Dubois properties off River Road, and said that better-managed forests will mean better hiking trails and hunting areas for locals and visitors.

"Taking care of a forest is like taking care of a garden," Connolly said recently. "You have to do timber-harvesting in order to maintain the forest to help it continue to grow and thrive for animals and plants."

The Town Forest is the most hunted area of town property, Connolly said, and so while a management plan is in the works for that land, there will likely be less established hiking trails created and more natural paths already there from hunters.

"We don't want to disrupt the hunting grounds," he said.

Still, Connolly has a different vision for the French and Dubois properties. In the very near future, he said, commission members and other volunteers will be working to map out the land and create established hiking trails.

Connolly said he envisions parking areas with kiosks to provide trail maps and markers along the trails to point out historical items or locations. And while the commission has not been actively seeking out residents to put their land into conservation easement, Connolly said he hopes that in the coming decade residents will be better educated about the process and more interested in conserving their land for years to come. He said he also hopes that having better-managed forests and established hiking areas will better educate the community on just how much the town has to offer in terms of outdoor recreation areas and that the land will be more commonly utilized by citizens.

Having conservation space, he said, is just as important to the town as having more developed space, as many in town are looking to cultivate in the coming years.

Jump-starting Local Development

In order to see that development, better-funded services and lower taxes for Farmington within the next decade, there is a lot of work to be done, town officials said. Much of that work involves making the town more attractive to businesses and developers.

Economic Development Commission members have discussed plans to network with both local landowners and businesses in the region. That way, said committee Chair Gail Ellis, if a business comes to town looking for a piece of land to develop, the committee would be able to easily identify available local land that would fit their unique needs.

The committee also has plans, she said, to offer their help to incoming businesses, particularly smaller ones whose owners may not have had much experience dealing with Planning Boards and the zoning and permitting process. While the committee will not change the process a business or developer will go through in the town, Ellis said she believes having an experienced individual at their side will help small business owners from getting discouraged or overwhelmed by the process.

Menici has her own ideas of how to make the town more business-friendly. One of the biggest changes the town could make, she said, would be to extend the town water and sewage service to all of Route 11. While the southern area of the road near the Rochester line does have water, other prime development areas farther north do not. This, she said, could be a deal-breaker for some developers.

"They have to give a serious look at extending town water and sewer," Menici said recently, though adding it would be a large expense. "The town needs to weigh the costs of extending those services out there versus the benefit of having them there."

Menici also suggested that the town look into providing more incentives for businesses to develop in Farmington, saying that there are many options the town could look at and that many local communities — such as Rochester, Somersworth and Dover — have had development success by offering such incentives.

One such incentive would help existing Farmington businesses more than incoming developers, Menici said, by developing a Community Revitalization Tax Relief incentive. This allows a community to designate an area of town in which property owners who agree to make improvements to their businesses can get a tax break on the costs of those improvements. Menici said while many small businesses would like to make repairs, they often do not have the money to pay for them and then also pay the increased taxes that arise from having a higher assessed value on their business. The community revitalization program, however, would allow the town to reassess the building after improvements are made, but tax the business owner on the preimprovement assessment for five years.

"This is a way of encouraging people to make some of those improvements and may be help by making it more financially feasible," Menici said.

Another incentive Menici suggested the town could look into that would help foster development in coming years would be to create an Economic Revitalization zone within the town. Unlike the first incentive Menici suggested, this program would encourage new development.

The Collins and Aikman site is already in an Economic Revitalization zone, Menici said, but the town could create more to encourage development in other areas. The program allows for someone opening a new business and creating new employment to receive tax credits toward the New Hampshire profits and enterprise business taxes.

In order to designate an area of town as this kind of zone, Menici said, at least one of a few criteria must be met. The area must have experienced a population decrease over the past 20 years, have 20 percent of its residents below the poverty level or contain an underutilized industrial park.

"I think the potential for other areas of town being able to receive that designation is pretty good," Menici said.

Menici also suggested using the services of a nonprofit organization — Plan NH — to help jump-start development plans for a certain area of town or parcel of land, saying the Collins and Aikman site would be an ideal location.

The organization is made up of architects, engineers, planning consultants and other development experts. Once or twice a year, the group solicits applications from communities in the state that have unique projects they would like design and planning assistance with. Once a community project is selected, the Plan NH team descends upon the town for a weekend and visits site, talks with town officials and local residents and make recommendations on how to best use the site.

"They want the community involved, so there's a lot of interaction with the citizens of the community to get input and feedback from them," Menici said. "You end up with not just a design on paper, but 20 to 30 pages of recommendations on how this can all be implemented, the process, ant concerns, and why they make the recommendations they make."

Menici said this program could be a big help to get development going on Route 11 and in the general downtown area.

While these incentives and programs will all have to be looked at to see whether the town could benefit from them, many town officials said making the town more business-friendly is the key to increasing development in the community.

And increasing development, they said, is the key to protecting the town's future, its economy, and its residents.

"Farmington is unique, we have long-term citizenry — generations of people — and a strong family base that every community would like to have," Parker said recently. "We've struggled but we've remained strong, and that's a credit to the people that are here. Hopefully, as years progress, that family base is always kept."